


Hollywood

by Good_Evening



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mental Institution, Anal Sex, Coercion, Depression, Emotional Manipulation, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mutual Pining, Oral Sex, Pitch's Perspective, Sadism, Self-Pity, Sexual Tension, Suicide Attempt, Underage Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-22
Updated: 2014-11-22
Packaged: 2018-02-26 14:29:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2655425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Good_Evening/pseuds/Good_Evening
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack and Pitch believe in each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hollywood

**Author's Note:**

> This is perhaps a year old? Year and a half. WHY NOT.

The Hollywood life Pitch had promised him was going stale. Jack found himself wandering from room to room in their tiny apartment, mapping the clutter that would appear each day. The summer kept him withdrawn, stifled by the heat and subdued by Pitch’s uncontainable energy. While he wouldn’t leave the building, he would venture downstairs through the sticky heat of the hall, planning to buy every soda in the lobby machine. But he kept forgetting it took money.

That summer was the hottest, yet, that decade, and he couldn’t exactly count on Pitch to care for him. He would linger on the fire escape, stripping off his clothes and basking in the shade while the neighbor across the way called the super to complain. The past week or so, the heat had been so unbearable, he couldn’t bring himself to open a window, even though the stuffy air in the tenement often made him feel mad. He hadn’t the energy to move until late afternoon, when the sun left the glass panes and their side of the building was bathed in shadow.

He missed Burgess, but Philadelphia offered services he couldn’t wholly refuse.

A stack of fairytales dominated the scuffed table in the kitchen. Snow globes with miniature world wonders and tiny smiling children were hidden in a box by the fireplace.  When they first moved in, Pitch left the vent open in the dead of winter to ensure he could communicate with the Nightmares. The apartment was only temporary. Jack was grateful for the cold, but a few weeks later, the man was convinced that they were out to get him, and so he stuffed the chute with newspaper and taped the doors shut.

Jack was never sure what he was thinking, but he wasn’t exactly sure of himself, either. The half-year grace period had passed in a daze, and he wondered if he would ever see his friends again. He missed his sister most of all. His mother didn’t favor him, but he missed her, too.

The door rattled and Jack peeled himself lazily off of the stone near the fireplace. The hall flooded with fluorescent light and a musty, hot smell. Pitch nearly had to hunch to get through the ancient doorway. The building predated light shafts. He was, as usual, carrying a box. Crumpled paper brimmed over, protecting the contents. He lit up instantly at Jack’s weary face, the other on his elbows to see beyond the archway.

“Jack! Good news,” he started. A good mood, then. Jack spread his toes onto the carpet and let his head fall back.

“What could it be?” He mumbled, lips sticking with sweat. An insistent rustling with the package alerted him to sit up again. Pitch had a habit of pinning him down to get his attention, if he left the option open.

As he was scratching his head, body bare and lacquered with sweat, Pitch entered the living room with an armful of small metal boxes. His eyes glittered and he wore a mischievous smile. Had they been normal, Jack might have thought there was a present coming.

Pitch dropped them to the floor with a terrifying clang, several of them bouncing at Jack. He flung his arms up to defend himself, the twisted corner of one box hitting his shin. He cried out and clutched it in pain, cursing a blue streak while Pitch kicked one box carelessly to the side and leaned down to look at him. In an instant, one of his spindly hands gripped the back of a white head, yanking it to face him as blue eyes glared through tears.

“What the **hell** , Pitch?!” He ground out, white teeth nearly chipping from the force of his pain. Pitch appraised him with an arrogant smile, letting Jack’s head drop as he stepped back and drew his arms wide. Jack continued rocking, shielding his cut leg.

“I’ve done it. I’ve found a way.”

“A way to _what_? Maul people?” Jack rubbed the spot sorely, hand coming away with a fair amount of blood. Pitch frowned,

“Stop bleeding on the carpet. It’s impossible to remove.”

Jack only glared at him,

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

Pitch disregarded him with a turn of the head, eyes drawn to the boxes settled on the floor. Some had chipped the bricks. He picked one up and held it out, beckoning,

“Go on, open it.” He goaded breathlessly.

Sparing his shin another attack, he guarded it with his torso and accepted the box. It was pretty—gold with pink and blue enamel in a vibrant pattern, and a carefully-painted picture of a smiling boy at the end.

“What’s in it?”

Pitch snatched it from him and scratched his hand. Jack hissed, recoiling and biting his lip to keep from swearing. For all his eccentricities, Pitch had never cared for swearing. He’d gotten away with it earlier, likely, because of distraction.

Grayed hands fumbled with the lid until the box slid apart. He held it out to Jack, who looked inside and immediately shot back onto his arms.

“What are you doing with **children’s teeth**?!” he demanded, head buzzing from rage and confusion. Pitch frowned and he went on guard.

“Don’t _yell_ , Jack. It’s unbecoming.”

“I’m not yelling!” He fumed anxiously.

Pitch grabbed his wrist and tugged him to his feet so that he crashed against the other man. He tried to hit him, but Pitch twirled him so that his arms were trapped and his back was flush against a smooth black coat. He sobbed in anger and struggled furiously. He hated it when Pitch held him like this. He hated being tied up, feeling boxed in. He hated this apartment; the murky corridor; the stuffy little bedroom; their cramped, wasted life.

“Let **_go_** of me!” He cried when Pitch’s nails dug into his wrists and sharp teeth came near his ear. He stilled as a lean figure pressed against his naked back,

“I’ve found a way to stop them.”

“Pitch, not again—”

“Yes, Jack,” he jerked away and limped back toward the fireplace, using the mantel as a crutch, his shin covered in blood. Pitch stepped back, another box rattling along the bricks. He pointed at him, “When this is finished, they’ll believe in us. All of them.” Jack hid his flinch and kept a firm grasp on his fury, stressing futile pleas,

“They **won’t** , Pitch. We take the meds and they don’t **come** here. That was the deal.”

Pitch only shook his head, hands slashing the air in front him. Jack gave him a wide berth. There was no way of knowing how long he’d been out of the saddle.

“Jack, they’re _laughing_ at us. And at night, the sand raps on the window, just _taunting_ me, when it was _mine!_ ”

“How long have you been off schedule?”

“They think I don’t notice. They think I’m not spying through the shadows, using the same tricks.”

Pitch advanced on him and he backed up toward their bedroom.

“Pitch, they’re going to report us. We have group, tomorrow,”

“They took it away, Jack. You can’t know what it’s like to have everything and then be **destitute**. To be **forgotten**.”

Pitch had had a life before all this, Jack knew, but he wasn’t sure if the man truly remembered, in this state. If he thought he’d been brainwashed, or cloned, or abducted. They’d never been able to keep a conversation steady for long enough to figure it out.

A vice clamped onto his arms. Pitch shook his shoulders and he couldn’t help the tremble. It wasn’t fair. Pitch got to skip meds and feel strong and Jack was used up and _quivering_ and he should have had the same invincibility. Pitch only shook him harder.

“I _believe_ in you, Jack.”

Jack kept trembling. Too tired to cry, fighting an uneven battle; he wanted to sleep on the floor and wait out the summer in hibernation.

“Jack.”

He was done with the episodes, done with the terror. But he’d go off his meds, same as Pitch, same as always. He’d hop back in the saddle and leave, wander around the countryside, sleeping in trees before finally coming back around; too fickle to stay for long, too aimless to leave for good.

He shut his eyes against his own words,

“It’s not real,”

“ _We’re_ real, Jack! Don’t let them convince you! You’re better than that.”

He did feel that way. He did know he was better than them, that he didn’t belong with them. He didn’t have to interact. The apartment may have been slowly poisoning him every day with boredom, with uselessness, but it was better than drifting outside and remembering that he was _nobody_ , with nothing to his name, and no one to care.

Except Pitch.

Pitch cared, in his own way.

“Jack, you’re all I have.”

It was a lie, but he thought Pitch knew that, too. He’d been deceived before, when they were just starting out. It was so easy to fall for what he wanted.

A finger lifted his chin and he stared up at Pitch, miserable, scattered. Something in those grey eyes implored him to say it, even if he didn’t want to affirm the fantasy. It couldn’t be a fantasy. Pitch hadn’t been wrong, yet.

When he cast his eyes down, afraid to look up again, he tried to swallow the words. Don’t let a sentence destroy weeks of therapy. Don’t give in. He hadn’t seen a true smile on Pitch’s face in well over a month, and he knew the medication was at fault. Pitch had been the only supportive force in his life that wasn’t being paid by the state. Pitch had stood by him when his family stopped seeing him altogether. He couldn’t _not_ say it. He’d be lying.

The breath shuddered out and he wrapped his hands around Pitch’s, feeling him stiffen at his touch.

“I believe in you.”

“Jack,”

Pitch sighed, and then forced him back into the bedroom. Jack allowed the long coat to stay; the trouble he’d get for touching it wasn’t worth the relief from being scratched by the wool. All he did was unzip Pitch’s slacks, and then he was thrown on the bed. It squeaked too much. Their neighbors hated when they went off schedule. The springs woke them up at night, if the gasps, moans, and screams didn’t do it first.

-

Jack admitted that Pitch was a better lover, off his meds. Speech had too many distractions, and they couldn’t talk without his schemes entering the conversation, but sex had always refined his focus to an uncanny degree. Sex and smoking.

At the moment, the smoke curled over Jack’s head as he fought off beads of sweat, breathing returning to normal while Pitch pet his hair. The mattress was old and damp, and Pitch’s feet hung off the end, so he kept one knee up and the other draped off the side. The ceiling was stained yellow, but they hadn’t lived there long enough for the tobacco to have done it. Jack wondered how long this had acted as a halfway house.

He’d gotten out of the psych ward only to be shoved right into therapy. His parents were gone from his life the moment he’d disappeared, and his sister had been too young to look for him. Jack had always been reckless, but the level of carelessness with which he handled his own life finally alerted the state. Perhaps swallowing half a pill bottle and then walking out onto a thawing river weren’t the best choices he’d made. He thought it was fun.

The paramedic held his soaked wallet in shivering fingers. Shuffled onto the bank and wrapped in a blanket, the first words of his new life were

_Your name is Jack Frost._

Hypothermia stalled his response. It was a fake ID, but what else could his name have been? He merely looked up at the midnight sky and wondered why Burgess was so beautiful only now. An hour later, he was covered in quilts in a hospital bed, a nurse at his side and a night-shift doctor asking him pointless things.

_How old are you?_

_Who’s taking care of you?_

_Why were you out there?_

He vomited onto his chest and passed out. Had the river frozen him? If the pills were going to come up, they should have done it sooner. His lips were blue when they forced the tube down his throat, body hunched instinctively on the bed. Something loud was beeping. His wrists were tied down, and he regained consciousness just long enough for his heart to stutter in panic.

Waking up alone in a hospital is like nothing else in the world. Watching the early morning sun drift pink shadows across fat white hills, too low yet to reach his room, Jack thought he would have an epiphany. He could see the beauty around him and see through it. When he walked out onto the ice, he must have known where he was going, but coming to in a room with no people, not even his own name on his charts, he felt lost, small, and very much alone.

-

One day, when they were sitting outside of group after an outburst, Jack brought his feet up onto his chair and asked Pitch,

“Why are you here?”

To Pitch’s credit, it was a pretty common question, in this crowd. His flippancy read through so natural, he could have been talking about a TV show.

“My family left.”

Jack rested his head on his knee and looked Pitch over. Jack still looked normal. Too skinny, too fey, but he could have passed at any burger joint in the city. Pitch, on the other hand, had every scar his psychoses could gnaw out of him.

Jack couldn’t help his curiosity. It was like an infection.

“Show me yours, I’ll show you mine.”

He rested his head on his knees and wrapped his arms tightly about his legs. Pitch watched him and his eyes grew softer.

“Which ones?”

“Whichever you like best.”

Pitch glared at the wall across from them. It was textured white, with blue and pink flecks. The plastic flowers on the table had too many missing petals to look real.

“I turned on the gas, stuck my head in the oven, and waited to fall asleep.”

“Very Sylvia Plath.”

“I do try.”

Jack didn’t like Pitch at first, didn’t like the baggage, but it was always fun to talk to him. When he wasn’t out to degrade and dehumanize. Jack understood loneliness better than anybody.

-

Technically, it hadn’t started out that way, but Jack’s first date with Pitch was one of the most violent, frustrating, beautiful experiences in his life.

They’d been fighting. They were annoyed, lonesome. Something had to give, and each was the only other person either could communicate with. It takes a special type to understand that level of isolation; neither had spoken to their family in years; neither had any viable future that wasn’t ruled by someone else. Pitch threw the first punch and Jack had always loved fighting.

Blood plopped down on the snow. Pitch was wiping his face, glaring and willing Jack’s body to crumple up and fade into the abyss, when he looked at the sheer mess they’d made. The scuffed bark, snow dotted with red, virgin drifts decimated by their tussle. The violence was pure; untainted by therapy and too liberating to not leave a quiver in their muscles. Pitch was the first one to notice.

“Beautiful.”

“What?” Jack glowered.

“I said it’s beautiful. You’re beautiful.”

“ _I’m beautiful_.”

Pitch stood tall. He never panted after a fight. He just lost himself in the wonder of it. That love of brutality should have been the first warning, if his disorder wasn’t. Jack looked down at the spots of blood, the trampled bracken. Pitch walked slowly toward him and he backed against a tree.

“You’re afraid.”

“I’m not afraid of anything.” Jack bit back.

Pitch’s thumb stroked his lip and he was conscious of the fact that he usually looked dead. The red made him seem human, even though it was coming from him in the first place.

“Hm,” he knew that sound. Pitch wasn’t really listening. No one ever listened.

Jack shook him off and Pitch let him.

“I hope you get eaten by a wolf.” He growled as he stepped lightly over the snow. However livid he was, Jack was always light; ethereal. He could have floated down from the clouds. Pitch didn’t let him get far. A hand wrapped around his arm and he almost shrieked as he was yanked back,

“You’re alone, Jack.” He crooned, studying the boy’s reactions as he hissed and threw off deft hands. “But really, you’ve always been alone, haven’t you? No one else noticed you; understood you; wanted you.”

The tears welled up fast and Jack’s anger roiled. He couldn’t look up and the force of will needed to keep his sobs silent was gathering in his head, the pressure of his despair stunting each breath. Pitch urged him with gentle tugs at his chin to look up, but he grunted and squirmed against the man, cursing with a cracking voice.

“Jack, look at me.” Pitch was cooler, serious. Jack’s glare shined with all hatred, but the face he saw was familiar; weathered and empty. Almost beaten, and longing.

“I thought, no one else knows what this feels like. But now I see I was wrong.”

Jack whipped back at him, trying to stay focused and losing it. Pitch gazed after him, vulnerable.

“We don’t _have_ to be alone, Jack.”

No lies. Not pity. Pitch was in it for himself just as much as Jack would be. He wanted Jack for who he was, or so Jack liked to think. He turned to the forest and walked away. But he never said no. He thought that an answer good as any for a stalker.

-

The ER waiting room wasn’t as polished as the rest of the hospital. He couldn’t remember getting there. The psych ward was distanced from the chaos, in a wing on the other side.  His feet were numb. Had he walked outside? How had he gotten out, at this hour? His chest and brain throbbed every few seconds, grounding him with a bleary shake of the head, back stiff on the couch.

The sleeves of his hoodie were soaked in blood.

Oh, right.

It’s a strange moment, walking in on the aftermath of a suicide attempt. It could have been an attack; he should have called the police; maybe the blood streaked across the floor meant zombies had infected the ward and he was to be eaten within seconds of his discovery.

Normal people think like that. It seems too fantastic, too unreal; unnatural. Stuff only found in movies. But Jack understood. He knew exactly what to expect. Seeing his own habits funneling through ceramic tiles wasn’t a wakeup call. It was more like finding an author you’ve read on someone’s shelf. Why he’d felt the need to touch it, though, was a mystery to him. He didn’t have blackouts like Pitch. And had it been Pitch?

Had it been Pitch?

His head hurt. How many pills had he taken? How many are saved up over three weeks? And then he’d traded for more. He couldn’t remember. The chair felt heavy, sinking, as if he were sliding off a cliff. The ER was always too loud for his tastes, but he had to know if it had been Pitch. A nurse shook his shoulder and kept calling him

_Sir?_

_Sir, are you alright?_

_When did you come in?_

_Was anyone with you?_

He muttered Pitch’s name, but the syllable tangled his mouth, and the sound was heavy and garbled. She asked if he could stand. Arm pushing up the chair, his sleeve revealed the hospital tag. The woman read it carefully and asked him again,

_Are you hurt?_

_Can you tell me what you took?_

Jack liked to think he had a better poker face than that. But by the time he’d worked up the energy to say anything, there was a warm, acidic lurch in his stomach. Red burst onto the carpet in a violent splatter. Blood. He was vomiting blood. When had he swallowed blood? He was curled on the floor, convulsing madly. A group of people were lifting him onto a gurney. He was puking into a bedpan. He’d overdosed without meaning to. The blood staining his hoodie and knowing Pitch had scars and having that stash built up for so long...

He’d been planning for another attempt, and he’d wasted it. The blood is fruit punch. He’d had group, earlier. Pitch hadn’t shown up.

_“K..Kugh...”_

He was trying to ask,

_Have any of you seen Kozmotis Pitchiner? He should have rolled in, bled out, oh, a few hours ago._

Passing out was never very fun. He liked being awake. It was better than nightmares, and he always had Pitch to talk to.

Why had it been a good idea to kill himself if Pitch was gone? Pitch was annoying. Pitch followed him around and reminded him of his own misery. He was the herald of a sleepless night. He was conflict and cynicism and companionship and laughing at anyone who couldn’t understand the beauty of it.

But Jack was unconscious. He wasn’t thinking any of that.

When he saw Pitch staring down at him, he realized he’d never seen that expression on his face: panicked; empty. As Jack gained the ability to focus, gazing after him long enough to appear awake, the anxiety lifted haltingly. Pitch sucked in a breath and had the audacity to _touch_ him when he was down.

He grabbed his face, his arms, ran his fingers through his hair. He turned thunderous, voice hoarse and deep,

“What were you thinking?”

 _Psh. You know better than to talk to someone who’s just had their stomach pumped_.

But Pitch wouldn’t listen to him. Pitch understood him, Pitch could hone in on every last need, wish, want, and whim, but when it came to talking it all through, he retained his usual airiness. Unless his happiness was on the line, too.

“Do you even know what you took?”

Do you know what could have happened? Jack had been at the wrong end of that question before. This was only his second overdose, but he was getting the hang of dying, up until the last bit. Pitch wouldn’t dare ask him. Jack didn’t really feel like talking about it.

“ _… hought… you we…  dead_.”

His voice pained him; raspy. All he wanted was water, even though he knew it would only burn him faster, hotter. He needed a tray of ice cubes, stat. He barely caught the twist of alarm and confusion on Pitch’s face.

“ _Blood in the bathroom_.”

“That wasn’t me.”

Jack was confident from the miffed look on Pitch’s face that his expression told all.

 _I can see that_.

Pitch didn’t bother asking him why he’d done it. Perhaps it made him uncomfortable, though Jack was skeptical. If death could ruffle Pitch’s feathers, they’d never have had half of the conversations he’d enjoyed. Maybe Jack was special.

The silence left a grave feeling in the room, and Jack didn’t possess his standard ebullience and smart-assery to will it away. It lied stagnant, oppressive between them.

“ _Missed group?_ ”

The glazed look in Pitch’s eyes burned up. He focused on Jack, but didn’t answer. That was a little odd. Pitch loved talking, particularly about himself. He tenderly pushed the sweat-matted hair off of Jack’s forehead, as one would a child’s, making him squirm feebly away. He clucked and muttered,

“They’re only going to keep you longer, now. And you were doing so well,”

The smile was soothing, even though they’d been talking about how they were probably going to off themselves when they got out, anyway. Pitch was acting like Jack’s life was too good to end; that he had a chance to get out and wasn’t doomed to therapy, pills, and dorms. Group didn’t do a damned thing. Jack wished he could miss every meeting, but then again he wished he could miss a whole lot of things. Pitch seemed to disagree with his thanatic fervor.

Pitch stroked his hair, couldn’t stop touching him for more than seconds at a time. It was dark out and he was wearing a ragged black sweater. Face gaunt, eyes sunken; he hadn’t slept in days. Jack tried to sit up, but an insistent hand kept him down.

“ _Easy,_ ” he hissed, stomach empty and sore. He kept eye contact, weaving an exhausted smile with a short burst of energy. He moved his hand over that on his chest to push it off, but Pitch caught it in a firm grip. His smile wavered at the severe expression the man held. It put him on guard.

“Don’t leave.” He urged. The force in those words was unnerving. Jack might be punished for disobeying. He frowned and tugged weakly at his wrist, but he was held fast. Panic bloomed and his thoughts quickened, heartbeat struggling to keep up with demand. His wrist was bruising, he was sure of it, and he was _angry_.

“ _Don’t **tell** me what to do!”_ He snarled, pulling more frantically. After an uncomfortable staring contest, Pitch released him. He rubbed the tender flesh, thoughtless of the blood smeared from his excursion in the bathroom. Pitch was holding himself back, swallowing an entire rant as he stood and walked to the chair by the window, still close enough for him to touch the bed. Jack scooted to the opposite side. Without a word, Pitch pulled his sweater over his head, shirt riding high on thin hips. Dozens of scars appeared: gashes, strips, scabbed puncture marks like vampire bites from staples and stitches. He righted his undershirt and draped the jumper carefully over Jack’s feet, then seated himself with a relaxed slouch. He might fall asleep right there. Instead, he looked Jack over with that same intensity, almost enough to make him shiver. And then in a low, quiet tone, he said,

“If you die, I will, too.”

As if it were the simplest thing in the world. Jack wanted to slug him, but an uneasy tingle spread warmly through his limbs. He hauled his knees up defensively, protecting his aching stomach. The IV tugged on his arm and his throat hurt when he gulped. He had no family, no friends. No one cared about him. He couldn’t even care for himself. Pitch was the exact same, but he’d done it for all of Jack’s life and more. He’d been alone longer than anyone should. And he’d lived through it, albeit with a few snags along the way. Jack settled his cheek onto his knees, staring at Pitch and failing to hide the hope in his face. His voice felt too quiet; too weak. Jack Frost was not a bashful creature.

He breathed slowly, a death grip on the quilt to keep him grounded.

“… _okay_.”

And that was acceptable to Pitch.

-

They had been visiting each other secretly for two weeks. Jack was being released to a halfway house on Monday, and Pitch was trying his hardest to convince his therapist that he could find a stable job. They were in the forest on the border of hospital grounds, lying in leaves crisp with autumn frost. The moon was full and the birches shone, flecked with ice crystals. Their breath glowed as it left them, illumined under the stars.

Pitch loved Jack’s voice. He loved the way he looked in the cold; cheeks pale, lips purple and thrust in a lopsided smirk. It was Saturday. Jack was packing to leave, the next day.

The cold never bothered him, but he lied as closely as he could to Jack’s warmth without alarming him. Jack was talking about his sister, about his hometown. He skirted distantly around a boy named Jamie and gestured excitedly describing skating on the river in winter. His hands flopped to his side with a heaving sigh and his smile was perfect, pure. The temptation was beginning to pain him.

“I just… I don’t know. I’m gonna miss this place. Not the place, but everything else. I’m gonna miss talking.”

“The outside world has phones, I believe.” Pitch offered, kicking himself over and over to keep his arms tucked into his coat. If they tried to slip away, at least he would feel it.

Jack was on his elbow with a rustle of leaves, staring down at him incredulously. His hand was right by Pitch’s waist.

“You know what I mean,” he muttered.

Pitch knew too well, or hoped he did. He was never sure of anything, couldn’t trust anything. A day hadn’t passed without his fighting the medication to the last minute or spending it locked in a groggy haze, too useless and dazed to move. He hated the meds, but they were the only thing bringing him closer to Jack. The act had to hold at least until he got out of here, until he could be himself and Jack could be himself and they could be together.

“It’s a boonies thing, maybe. You ever tried it?”

Jack had been talking. Pitch hadn’t listened. He knew Jack would be upset, so he played the safest card.

“Once or twice, maybe. When I was younger.”

Jack leaned back excitedly, hood pulled over his head and pressing against Pitch’s bare neck. He didn’t dare breathe.

“Okay, so you get maybe eight or ten kids together, and you divide the woods into three parts. No-man’s land has to have the most obstacles, that’s a rule.”

Jack leached the heat from him and it overflowed in response, all he could give. He ached under the heavy trench coat, sweating hands begging him to remove the gloves, but he couldn’t trust them to stay out of trouble.

“And then when you’ve picked off about two more of ‘em on the other side, you offer a treaty. When they meet you in the middle, the rest of your guys ambush ‘em and WUH-BAM!” His laughter was young and light and unburdened; the peal of jingle bells. “You nab ‘em and get ‘em to surrender fully. And THAT is how you win a snowball _war_.”

“What about hide-and-seek?” Pitch had to get his mind off of it. He was willing to try anything. Jack turned on his side and sprawled as if he were in bed, hair wild, lips glistening. Pitch checked his thoughts one at a time to keep them innocent.

“You mean one-on-one?” His eyes sparkled. “Pitch, are you propositioning me?”

His mouth was dry. The phrasing nearly killed him and he responded breathily, tracking the stars to keep off the wrong path.

“Yes.”

Jack sprung up and dragged him to his feet with a confused stumble.

“Headstart. Five seconds!”

He dashed into the frosty woodland, feet crunching down on the frozen bracken.

He could do this. He’d fought in a real war. He didn’t want to do this. He wanted Jack at his mercy. He wanted to crawl under his bed and linger in the darkness. He wanted a cold shower and hard punch in the jaw. He wanted Jack.

Voice smooth but too low, he growled into the radiant landscape,

“Prepare yourself!”

It was a flurry of bare feet and grasping hands, Jack climbing trees and hopping branches across the rocky creek. Pitch flew over the stones, gliding effortlessly in Jack’s wake as the boy led him deeper into the wood. Boughs creaked and silenced. Jack hit the ground running, laughing too loud for stealth as he rounded stumps and finally brought them against the hedge lining the property. He let out a delighted squeal as Pitch lunged for him, skittering along roots and jumping with childish whoops as he traced the verdant border.

Open territory. No trees to dodge. Pitch sped up and his hand brushed the soft, cold fabric of Jack’s hoodie. Jack glimpsed back and yelped, flinging himself into a trunk in failed escape. Pitch pinned him with a loud _thunk_ , yanking his hands around the wood with a whining growl. His heart was still flying through the darkness. His limbs shook as he pressed against Jack, shielding him from the moonlight because it made him too beautiful not to act.

When Jack glanced up to laugh, the light brightened his skin and hair until he looked ethereal. Pitch had caught a sylph, he was so sure. He wanted to crush Jack’s wings as much as he wanted to chase him forever.

“Ha, ahahahh, I haven’t… run like that in… man. I don’t know.” He laughed and Pitch whined desperately, scraping his forehead against the bark.

_Take him._

_He needs it._

_He’s begging for it._

_He wants you, just look at him_ , _just **Take. Him.**_

And he positively shimmered in the night, as if born in silver moonlight; hair dotted with stray spirals of frost, cheeks glowing pink, angelic.

Pitch’s grip on his wrists tightened and those hands were so small and so cold in his own. He’d thrown off his gloves in pursuit. He’d lost his hat and scarf and he was too bare, for once unrestrained. The cold crept under his flesh and Jack provided no relief, but he felt cool and right and so very, _very_ delicate.

“Pitch,” he started, mirth fading as the clamp refused to budge. Pitch burrowed into his neck, tasting the ice in his hair and breathing life into dead skin. Jack was the most exquisite corpse.

He tasted earthy, frozen in place under Pitch’s lips. Pitch pressed into the kiss like a dying man, and when he drew away, forcing his hands back at his sides, Jack slid off the tree toward the wood. Pitch’s expression must have been horrified, because for how unmoored he was, a nascent pity grew in Jack’s face, and he only wiped his lips once.

“… We should get back.”

That was the last thing in Pitch’s mind. He fought the idea with such ferocity, he didn’t even notice how he stalked forward, stance so tense and frightening that the boy stumbled as he backed away. He grabbed a long, crooked branch as a weapon.

“Pitch, this isn’t funny.”

It was a great show of will on Pitch’s part that he stopped. The only way he could manage it was to hunch over, half-glaring ahead of him where Jack was growing smaller, growing distant from him. Teeth grating, he forced himself to focus, blinking through the water in his eyes. He held up a hand in supplication,

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

Jack’s voice cracked as he replied, “Sounds great! Let’s go back.”

“Jack, please,”

Voice so broken and hoarse, he could have whispered. Jack slowed in his retreat, armed still and at the defensive. Pitch monitored his thoughts again and killed anything that involved the word _take_.

“I’ve tried for so long. I can keep going. Just, please,”

He didn’t know what he wanted, at this point. Uprooted from the base of his desires to _hurt_ , to bring Jack to his side by whatever means necessary, he drifted uncertain through foreign territory. He vaguely remembered meeting his wife with confidence. If he could only extend the olive branch without tainting it, first, without wanting so ruthlessly, so shamelessly that Jack’s outreached hand would be his end. He let the cold bite his neck and punish him in place of the ghostly satisfaction that thought swept through him. It came out so sarcastic, a burning, gasping smile on his face,

“ **Don’t** be _afraid!_ ”

He was close to hysterics. His last dose had been so long ago. He needed a cigarette. The shadows of the trees stirred under watch of the moon.

“I’m not afraid.” Jack’s frown was strong and his stance relaxed as he said it. He wasn’t scared, but Pitch wanted that, too. He wanted all of Jack that he could get. If the boy was willing, so much the better. Jack stepped slowly toward him, where he was bent over as if in pain. When he straightened, the advance ceased. A test. Hold still.

“I can control it when I’m with you,”

Jack’s eyes widened a little at the obvious lie, but the audacity shook him, nonetheless.

“You should go back inside.”

“Stay with me!”

“I don’t,” Jack stopped in his tracks. “What?”

Pitch felt stronger; focused. He had a goal.

“Live with me. I want you to be with me.”

Truly, that was all the selflessness Pitch could handle in one sentence. Jack was his lifeline. To lose someone who understood loneliness so well, who wore it so strikingly, would be an irony too great to survive. Jack had to be his or nothing at all. His world held no room for indefinites.

 _What goes better together than the cold and the dark_?

The boy worried his lip and kneaded the long branch with numb fingers, staring up with wide, lonely eyes,

“You’re not even allowed to work from the ward. How are you going to stay with me?”

His defenses were already down. Whatever Pitch had sown in him with camaraderie was coming to fruition. Jack, for all his will and love and kindness, left every weakness honestly exposed. He was still a child. He sounded so hurt, so scared of being alone; so vulnerable. It did such nasty things to Pitch.

“Come with me, then. We’ll leave as soon as we can, together.” He stepped toward him, calculating the wince and the quick step back. His strides were longer. Jack looked up at him, hope so innocent and trusting, Pitch writhed under his own skin; something was waking that years of therapy had worked to suppress and he savored every stitch unraveled. With a smooth wave of his coat, his hand extended between them. Jack would have to walk to him to hand it over. He said it softly, tenderly,

“The staff, Jack.”

Jack’s gaze flicked up to him suddenly, and it was painfully clear that he was warring with himself. Pitch didn’t question how he’d gotten the upper hand, how he could barter, using their friendship, but Jack positively _dissolved_ in front of him.

His steps were light. The wood was frozen and heavy. Pitch considered it as Jack stared after him nervously. Without a word, he brought the branch over his knee and snapped it in two. The crack gave Jack a jump and his shoulders shook as he realized he’d forfeited the only weapon nearby in a veritable wilderness. He never took his eyes from Pitch’s face: an expression at once expectant and unsure. His confidence had withered; there was nowhere to go.

Pitch glided forward, struggling to hide the old malice brewing in him. He dropped the pieces at Jack’s feet but Jack kept looking at him, not daring to give him an opening, whether or not he was seeking one.

And he was, he always was, but it hardly mattered. The wickedness was so small beneath the weight of his joy. He had Jack. Pure, beautiful, willful Jack, of all things. He enveloped the boy in his coat, allowing the instinctive jerk before he tightened his hold. Jack smelled so untainted, so clean. Like fallen snow.

“We’ll both get out of here. Believe in me, Jack.”

The trembling hand, fumbling to grasp his sweater, sent an electric jolt through him. Struck by lightning, he couldn’t have prepared himself for the steady response. Jack pressed close, permitting the warmth to invade him; absorbed all he could of it. His breaths came slow, controlled. Voice muffled by the sweater, he spoke slowly into Pitch’s chest,

“ … I believe in you.”

-

Jack’s breakdown had gone as planned. Released from the quiet room and scheduled for emergency therapy, he was confined to his dorm. Pitch elbowed his way in on the basis that he was helping to keep him stable. The moment the orderly opened the door, Jack rushed into Pitch’s arms, burying his face in the old black sweater and hiding his sobs. Once they had privacy, he pulled back and laughed so hard, he couldn’t breathe. Pitch laughed with him, holding him tightly, running his hands along his back, always touching.

-

His mouth was so cold. Pitch massaged his head and leaned back into the bricks, closing his eyes and trying to quiet his breaths. They were just outside the ice cream parlor. Jack had gotten pralines and cream, the caramel sticking to his cheeks as his tongue failed to lap it up. The white dripped down his chin and his laugh was husky, sultry in the summer heat, struggling to devour as much as he could. He closed his mouth over the top of the cone, licking up the sides.

Pitch was only a man, after all.

“Mm, Jack,” he gave a breathy chuckle. Jack was born to suck cock. His hips trembled as Jack swallowed him, grunting as the tip hit the back of his throat.

“ _Yess,_ ” he hissed, biting his lip, hips moving in shallow thrusts even as he restrained himself. The alley wasn’t that deep, and it was broad daylight. He could see children walking to the shop, cars slogging by in traffic. Jack ran his tongue along the sides of his cock, hollowing his cheeks. Pitch thrust with a desperate groan, choking him and forcing him back off the tip with an obscene, wet pop.

“ **Jack** ,”

“Damn,” Jack wiped saliva from his chin, on his knees with a playful smirk. “I don’t know how much longer I can do this,”

Pitch stroked himself and that shut him up. Jack was either embarrassed or mesmerized at the sight of his erection, red and glistening and pointing longingly at his reddened mouth. Jack relented and wrapped his lips around it again. Pitch jolted against the wall, breaths coming faster, higher.

“Ah—! Yes, haah, mnh,” Jack pulled off again, fist jerking Pitch off as fast as he could. Cum streaked over his face and he closed his eyes as quickly as he could.

“Gah! Seriously?! Warn me next time!”

Pitch didn’t care about anything. His thumb rubbed his ejaculate into Jack’s skin and the boy grunted, slapping him away. Jack stood as he zipped up his pants, searching for something to wipe his face.

“Really?” he grumbled, settling on his undershirt. Pitch eyed his lean stomach appreciatively, reaching out to touch it. The fabric dropped before he could.

“Well,” he whistled, “I guess that’s that. Wanna go back?”

Stuck in the afterglow, Pitch watched Jack saunter back out of the alley.

“Come on, old man,”

He dropped his hand to the front of his trousers, hanging suggestively beside his stiff cock. He tucked it out of sight and smiled devilishly,

“You owe me.”

**Author's Note:**

> You may guess Jack's disorder, but Pitch's is a bit more convoluted.


End file.
